Stepping up its presence to fly the flag and deter piracy and drone attacks, the Indian Navy has now deployed nearly ten frontline warships with naval commandos in the region stretching from the northern and central Arabian Sea to the Gulf of Aden, officials said Friday. .
“Six to 10 major indigenous warships of the Indian Navy, including sestroyers, frigates and offshore patrol vessels, are deployed in the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden, with special focus near the coast of Somalia to counter piracy and drone attacks on merchant vessels prevent,” the spokesperson said. Navy officials said.
According to the officials, the Indian warships are monitoring the situation to deter any incident at sea.
Amid the recent spate of attacks on Indian merchant ships in the Arabian Sea, Chief of Army Staff Admiral R. Hari Kumar on Wednesday said the Indian Navy is proactively deploying its fleet to keep pirates at bay.
Addressing the media after unveiling the first indigenously manufactured Drishti 10 Starliner Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in Hyderabad on Wednesday, the Navy Chief said, “In the last 42 days (approximately) as many as 35 such attacks took place, mainly targeting Israeli-owned ships. However, no Indian flag ship has been attacked so far.”
‘We are now deploying our units there very proactively to ensure that the pirates are kept at bay. If you look at the last 40 to 42 days, there have been about 35 such attacks, largely on Israeli-owned naval assets. So far, an Indian flag ship has been attacked,” the Chief of Naval Staff said.
The Navy chief added that so far there have been only two incidents that have prompted the Navy fighters to conduct anti-piracy operations.
“Both incidents involved non-Indian flag vessels. In the second incident, an Indian crew was on board the ship, prompting the Navy to respond,” he added.
“Anti-piracy operations were carried out following only two such incidents. In both cases the ships did not fly the flag of India. However, in the second incident, there were Indian crew members on board the ship, forcing us to “We obtained necessary permission from the ship’s owners and were able to rescue the crew in distress,” the Chief of Naval Staff said.
“We have not yet been able to identify where all these attacks are coming from. We have collected drone debris collected from three ships and are analyzing it,” the navy chief said.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: January 12, 2024 | 1:34 PM IST